Ice problem prompts water alert in Evanston

January 30, 2009

Evanston, which sits on the shores of Lake Michigan, asked residents today to curtail the use of water after ice temporarily blocked three intake pipes that feed the suburb's water treatment plant, officials said.

"Visualize a big pipe that all of a sudden gets filled with a Slurpie and just plugs it up," said Kevin Lookis, Evanston's assistant superintendent of water production. "It more or less stops the flow of water in the lake that we can take in."

The ice--called "frazil" or "anchor" ice--began melting after the sun came up today, but officials were concerned that the same problem could occur overnight Saturday and asked customers to voluntarily conserve water until notified otherwise.

Evanston's water treatment plant at Lincoln Street and the lake supplies more than 300,000 customers in Evanston, Skokie, Buffalo Grove, Arlington Heights, Wheeling and Palatine.

"We're asking customers to curtail non-essentials throughout the day--stuff like the laundry." Lookis said.

The conservation order effective until at least 1 p.m. Saturday

Water flow into the city's water treatment plant slowed to a trickle about 2:30 a.m. today and stopped completely two hours later. It wasn't until after dawn that the anchor ice began melting, allowing water to begin flowing again through the intake pipes.

The pipes feed water into the plant at three separate intake holes--one 54 inches in diameter, another 48 inches and the third 36 inches--located about 200 yards from each other.

Lowered about 28 feet into the lake, the pipes extend about a mile from the city's shoreline, Lookis said.

The plant typically pumps about 40 million gallons of water on a cold winter day. At its low point, the city's water supply was about 10 million gallons, Lookis said.